


Five Things You Can Do With a Cybernetic Arm

by whitesilence



Series: Wabi Sabi [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitesilence/pseuds/whitesilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy helps Bucky find things to do with his cybernetic arm that don't involve killing. </p><p>Not that he asks her to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Smoke and Sparks

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, it's been a long time since I've written any fanfic but, like everyone else, I saw TWS over the weekend and had FEELS (Oh the feels!) that I just had to deal with. 
> 
> This is me trying to find a balance between fluff, angst and humor.

He was standing alone, hands tucked into the small of his back, looking out over the city through the bank of floor to ceiling windows in a communal area of Avengers Tower while he waited for Steve to finish his meeting with Tony. His thoughts, always dark, always cold, were disturbed by a whispered argument getting louder behind him. He turned to see two women moving rapidly down the hall, shoving an object back and forth between them like a hot potato. An object that was glowing and making an ominous whining noise growing higher in pitch. They didn't seem to notice him as they practically ran for the balcony doors. 

Suddenly, the unlucky woman caught holding the object tripped over the area rug, sending it flying through the air toward him. Without thinking, he reached out and caught it with his left hand. Only for the object to die in his palm with an ear splitting shriek and a puff of smoke and sparks.

When the smoke cleared, he was left holding a lump of twisted metal and plastic in his blackened but, he thought, undamaged hand. Both women stared at him with wide eyes.

"Dude, are you okay?" the woman who had tripped asked from her sprawled position on the rug.

He grimaced, attempting to let go of the ruined object but it seemed to have fused to his fingers. "What is this?"

The woman still standing opened her mouth to explain but the other woman beat her to it. "Complicated science stuff. Don't worry about the specifics. We're just glad it didn't take your hand off, right Jane?"

"Oh, um, yes. Very glad." The one called Jane stepped up next to him, staring at his metal hand. She reached out to touch him but he snatched his hand away. "How's that work, by the way?"

"Oh my god, you can't just ask people how their prosthetic works! Especially if you just tried to blow them up." The loud one had picked herself up off the floor and moved to stand next to the one called Jane.

"I did not try to blow you up. At least not on purpose." Jane cringed at the closed expression on his face. "Really, I'm very sorry. I think it was an overload to the crystal that caused the whole quantum field to become unstable-"

"What happened?" Steve's commanding voice cut through Jane's nervous babble, silencing her. He attempted again to shake off the lump but it seemed to have attached itself quite firmly.

"It exploded." The loud one said quickly before another technical explanation could be launched. "Now it's stuck."

"Oh."


	2. The Sun Coming Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's gotta come off somehow.

He sat on a stool in Tony's workshop, his body as tense as a tightly coiled spring, while the other man carefully used a tiny plasma cutter to remove the melted device from his hand. Steve had said Tony was much like his father but since he only had dim memories of Howard Stark, he couldn't judge. Though he thought the constant stream of chatter that he only half listened to seemed familiar.

"How's it feel?" asked Tony, the scent of hot metal and burnt plastic hanging heavy in the air. "Does it hurt?"

"It's tolerable." And it was. While he could feel sensations like pain and pressure or the heat from the torch for example, they were sometimes dulled by the sensors built into the prosthetic. But the scientists employed by the Red Room had often worked on the arm without turning off the sensor array so by this point, extreme heat was relatively low on his pain scale.

"This is some pretty advanced tech, MegaMan. We should schedule some time so I can take a closer look at it." Tony continued, using a scrap of titanium to scrape off the last of the molten metal. "I don't think my medical R&D has anything like this going on."

"I think I'll pass." The last thing he wanted was to end up a lab rat again.

"Just an offer." Tony glanced up, a lot more meaning and emotion packed into that look than he would have thought the flighty genius was capable of. He remembered Steve telling him about the man's own electronic implant. "Better let me see how it works now rather than when I'm trying to put you back together some time down the line."

Tony picked up a Dremel tool with a small grinding attachment. "Think of the improvements we could make for other amputees."

He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

"Well, keep it in mind at least." The other man fell silent after that, focusing on smoothing down any burrs that remained on his palm and fingers before buffing the metal to it's previous shiny finish.

Finally, Tony sat back and slapped his metal palm. "That should do it."

He stood, flexing his fingers and wondering again at how the arm could feel both foreign and familiar at the same time. Dimly, he could hear Tony speaking to his building.

"Hey Jarvis, tell Lewis to bring The Jar down, will you?"

"Miss Lewis and Thor are currently outside the workshop, Mr. Stark."

Both men whipped around to see the loud woman from earlier this morning standing in the doorway grinning widely around a peppermint stick, holding what had to be the largest jar of dill pickles he had ever seen. Behind her towered Thor, his massive arms crossed over his chest and a frustrated expression on his face.

"What's this?" he asked as they entered.

"We've been calling it The Jar." she said. "With capital letters and everything."

"The Lady Darcy tells me that this container has been vacuum sealed to preserve the contents." Thor explained."I have been unable to open the container without damaging it, as she tells me that we cannot simply place the contents in a different container once opened."

"I can't open it either." admitted Tony, pulling his goggles down to hang around his neck. "Couldn't get a good enough grip with the suit."

"Neither could Steve." The loud one chimed in. He supposed he should call her Darcy since that seemed to be her name. "We thought you might like to give it a try."

He stared at them, incredulously. "Why don't you just break it?"

"Because that would make waaay too much sense." Darcy rolled her eyes as she set The Jar on the workbench. "At this point, it's a pride thing. Go on, try it."

She slid The Jar across the bench. It came to a stop right in front of him, the brine and pickles still sloshing cheerfully back and forth inside. He looked down at the large glass container and wondered how he had gone from the most feared assassin in the world to pickle jar opener. What was more, he didn’t know what it meant and couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not. With a sigh, he braced The Jar against his body with his right hand and grasped the lid with his left. The lid refused to budge at first but he fed more power to his arm and with a sudden twist, the lid released with a loud pop.

"That is the best thing ever." Darcy said, coming around the table to take The Jar. He wasn't sure if she meant his arm or his ability to open pickle jars. Instead of thinking about it, he tightened the lid back down slightly so the brine wouldn't leak. "Now you have bragging rights over half the team."

"We just loosened it for you!" Tony called from where ever he was putting away his tools but he wasn't paying the other man any attention.

Her fingers brushed against his as he handed the jar over. They were soft and warm and while he could barely feel them against his cold left hand, he could still feel the imprint of their heat after she took hold of The Jar. He looked down, she was so very short, into clear blue eyes ringed with thick lashes that would give Steve a run for his money. When she smiled without flinching under his dark gaze, it felt like the sun coming out.

"Hi, I'm Darcy. I made pastrami sandwiches for lunch. You want one?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way to a man's heart is through his stomach right?
> 
> (Can't say that's ever worked for me but maybe they meant it literally. Then again, I haven't tried that either.)
> 
> I only have like two more things for this story and the title says five so... anyone have any suggestions?


	3. Just a Little Bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve said it was good for him to get out, so out he went.

They were walking through the midway of the carnival Jane and Darcy had dragged them to. He wasn’t sure why he let her involve him in things like this but Steve said it was good for him to get out, so out he went. Barton, of course, had insisted on tagging along when he found out where they were going and somehow convinced Natasha to come as well.

"So I have a question for you, Barnes." Jane said as she picked at her cotton candy, Thor’s arm slung around her shoulders. "You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."

He knew that was as diplomatic as Jane was going to get in her questioning. And that she would not stop asking until she got an answer. Any attempt to resist was futile. The option to not answer was only a platitude. Really, SHIELD should just make her an interrogator. He sighed. "What is it?"

"Exactly how much force can you exert with your arm?"

He blinked, not having expected this question when she had previously been much more interested in the technology behind his arm than its actual capabilities. _What was it made out of?_ Titanium alloy. _How was it attached?_ Directly to his shoulder socket and hooked into his nervous system. _What powered it?_ His body was the main source of power; which was why Darcy should always err on the side of more sandwiches. Though he could probably do without all the pickles.

"Umm, a lot?" He rubbed his forehead. "I don't recall the exact number. Why?"

He glanced over to see the two women staring ahead with broad smiles spreading across their faces. He followed their gaze to see a high striker game, the kind you hit with a mallet to ring a bell on top of a tower, set up in the center of the carnival in front of them. It was ridiculously tall, a good twenty feet high and covered in flashing lights.

"You know that thing is probably rigged, right?" asked Barton, sliding his polarized glasses onto his forehead. "I checked it out earlier. It's totally rigged."

"Exactly." replied Jane, sharing a sly grin with Darcy. "Which is why the boys should try to beat it."

"Is this a test of strength, Jane?" asked Thor. "It appears similar to a game we have on Asgard."

"Yes, it is."

"Very well, my lady, let us see what the prizes are." Thor said, gallantly leading a giggling Jane over to the game. The knowledge that the game might be rigged did not seem to curb his enthusiasm at all. The others followed eagerly but he hung back, uncertain of bringing down the limelight, small though it might be, upon himself. Darcy paused at his side, her warm fingers seeking out his leather gloved hands as they always seemed to do.

"What's going on, Skywalker? You seem a little up in the clouds tonight."

He shrugged. Time was, he would have actually enjoyed the hustle and bustle of crowds, the twinkling lights and noise of the carnival, thrived on it even. But now, he couldn't seem to overcome his need to stay in the shadows. The press of the crowd, shrieks and laughter from the spinning rides and the shouting of the midway barkers kept him on edge. The bright lights left painful after images on his too sensitive eyes. She reached up and smoothed the crease between his brows.

He jerked away in shock at the unexpected touch, his need for control causing him to reach up and snatch her hand without thinking.

"Sorry!" she yelped, "I didn't mean to surprise you!"

"No." he ground out, forcing himself to breathe. "It's the crowd."

He realized he had grabbed her with his left hand, probably squeezing her too hard though she wasn't displaying any signs of discomfort. He hissed and dropped her hand abruptly, turning to walk away but she was there in front of him again. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, could only stare as she lifted up on to her toes and, hot breath blazing across his lips, whispered, "Is this okay?"

The crowd disappeared. They were the only two people on the planet as far as he was concerned. He let his head dip down to meet her. Their only point of contact was their lips, hers soft and sweet beneath him. He reached out to pull her close because she was so very warm and he was, despite the summer heat, always so very cold.

"Darcy!"

They sprang apart like two teenagers caught necking in a parent’s car, though Darcy retained a grip on his hands.

"Hurry up!" Jane called, "It's our turn!"

She turned back to Thor, not seeming to notice what she had interrupted. Darcy looked up at him with an uncharacteristically shy smile before taking her sunglasses off the top of her head and dropping them on his nose.

"Better?" she asked. Everything was now tinted a rosy red color but the brightness of the lights no longer left imprints on his retinas. He nodded. 

“Yes, thank you.”

She grinned widely in response and towed him over to where Thor was brandishing Mjolnir. He was eventually convinced to use the ordinary sledgehammer provided by the carnival. It took the god two tries but the bell rang and Jane was soon clutching an oversized plush dinosaur in a color not normally found in modern nature, forget the fossil record.

Barton was next and though he tried very hard, he failed miserably at winning Natasha the large plush Rastafarian banana. The archer had to console himself with the smaller blue and yellow octopus instead.

And then it was his turn. Heart pounding, he stepped up to the game and took the hammer when it was offered to him. The tool seemed absurdly light in his gloved hand as he raised it high over his head before bringing it crashing down on the rubber pad that sent the weight sailing up the game board.

The peal of the bell rang crystal clear over the small crowd gathered around the game and a cheer went up, just as it had for Thor but it didn't really register for him because he found himself nearly bowled over by a grinning Darcy.

"Knew you could do it." She said, hugging him tightly. He felt something inside him uncoil just a little bit in her warm embrace and as she led him away into the crowd after their friends, a big stuffed bear dangling from her hand, he felt the corner of his mouth quirk upwards in a tiny smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the suggestions, my dear readers! I love all of them so I'll be trying to incorporate as many as I can into the next two chapters. Which will most likely be posted over the weekend or next week because the boss comes back tomorrow and I have to start doing real work again. 
> 
> Just FYI, I spend way too much time trying to make real life science and comic book science play nicely. Sometimes it starts to make my brain hurt. Because who really cares how the cybernetic arm is attached or powered? I just don't see him hooking himself up to a wall socket via micro usb adapter. So to distract myself, I made Darcy's (Not described because Bucky hasn't started noticing things like that again yet.) outfit on Polyvore, which you can see [here](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=118815838).
> 
> What can I say? Over thinking: it's a fault of mine.


	4. Heart Learning to Beat Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She got you with that taser, you know.”

Thor had been called back to Asgard and Jane had buried herself in the labs. After two weeks of nonstop work, Darcy decided Jane needed a distraction. After a quick consultation with a map, she decided a visit to Niagara Falls would do the trick. He and Steve had never been to the landmark despite having grown up in New York and both agreed to go with her. But when she’d asked him to help her drag Jane along, he hadn’t thought she meant bodily. 

The first hour in the car with the lovesick scientist had been rather torturous. She had cried and wailed and threatened before finally falling into a restless sleep, her head leaning against Steve’s solid shoulder. Barnes sighed when he heard her first soft snore from the back seat.

Darcy looked over at him with a sympathetic smile on her lips. “Jane’s just worried about Thor.”

“At least she isn’t crying anymore.” he mumbled, though he remembered distantly that he had at one time been able to at least cope with a crying woman. Steve on the other hand...

She snorted with quiet laughter, glancing up into the rearview mirror. “How’re you doing back there, Cap? She isn’t drooling on you is she?”

“No, I’m doing alright.” Steve replied with a pained expression. Jane had done a fair bit of crying into his jacket.

“Because I totally have napkins if she drooled on you.”

~*~

The ride continued uneventfully for another hour or so. Darcy hooked up her iPod to the radio but kept the volume low and sang quietly, though not very skillfully, along. They had just passed Binghamton when the tire blew. 

Jane sat up screaming and Darcy swore, reflexively releasing the gas pedal. The car fishtailed, narrowly missing another vehicle to their left. But in the next moment, she managed to recover and bring the vehicle to a slow jolting stop on the shoulder of the road. She sat for a moment, breathing heavily while her body waited for her mind to catch up.

Her eyes widened when she glanced over at him. He had felt all the blood drain from his face when the tire blew, the sound so much louder because it had been so unexpected in the quiet car. Thankfully, it was his right hand that was clenched so hard around the door handle. If it had been his left, he might have taken the door off. 

“Everyone okay?” Darcy asked, cautiously. The two in the back answered quickly. She looked over at him.

“Yes.” he replied, staring at the trees straight ahead. 

Darcy put her hand on his knee, a comforting warmth that helped ground him just enough to cut through the curious, dull roar in his ears.

“Awesome, let’s see what the damage is. Hopefully, we can just stick the spare on.” 

They got out of the car to see that the front driver’s side tire had turned into a shredded mess, the area around the wheel well scraped and scratched from dragging against the road. Darcy huffed and said it was mostly cosmetic. 

Twenty minutes later, their bags were scattered next to the car and he was holding up the front end while Steve helped Darcy with the spare tire. After confessing that she had absolutely no idea what to do, Jane had been relegated to standing along the road holding a bright orange triangle. 

“Almost done, Barnes.” Darcy said, fitting on the last nut. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened to the jack. I swear, it was in the trunk.”

Metal fingers unfortunately, just didn’t have the same kind of friction as human ones. He shifted slightly, adjusting his grip and trying to ignore the antsy feeling crawling over his spine. “I’m fine.”

Steve gave the tire iron one last spin and took a step back. “That should do it.”

He dropped the front of the car down a thump. Flexing his fingers, he looked up just in time to see a large pickup truck barreling down on Jane, who had turned to walk back to the car. Without thinking, he vaulted over the vehicle, pulling Jane into his arms and took the brunt of the impact over his back and left shoulder. 

The truck flipped and cartwheeled over his head, thankfully missing Darcy’s car or any of the others, sliding down the middle of the road on its roof with a shower of sparks. When it finally skidded to a stop, Steve was there. He uncurled himself, releasing Jane from his protective grasp and stumbled over to the smoking wreck.

“We gotta get him out of there, Buck.” Steve said, going down on one knee to look into what had once been the cab of the truck. The driver was alone so Steve pulled on the door but it had been crushed down into the chassis hard enough that it wouldn’t budge. Without being asked, he reached out and grasped the door frame, squeezing hard enough with his left hand that he could tear and uncrimp the metal with ease. The door came free with an earsplitting shriek and he tossed it away, allowing Steve to pull the unconscious man free of the twisted heap. 

He heard Darcy yelling behind him. But her voice, normally loud enough to cut through any cacophony, was distorted to incomprehensibility by the roaring in his ears. Everything went silent though when the explosion blew him backwards. He was thrown into the hood of Darcy’s car, his head smashing through the windshield. Red dripped down his vision and he found he was leaping up and involuntarily launching himself straight for the nearest person. Who unfortunately happened to be Darcy. Beautiful, brave Darcy with her taser was the last thing he saw before everything went black. 

 

~*~

His eyes popped open and he was greeted by the familiar ceiling tiles of Medical. Turning his head, he found Steve crammed into the chair next to his bed, asleep. He lifted his hand, scrubbing at his face and the stubble he found there. A flurry of relief washed over him, immediately followed by a storm of guilt. Beside him, Steve shifted with a groan and sat up.

“Bucky.” he said, when he saw that his friend was awake.

“How long was I out?” he asked, his voice rough. The last thing he remembered was Steve crashing into him with the force of a freight train.

“Three days.”

“Darcy?”

“She’s fine.”

“Steve-”

“She’s fine, I promise. Not a scratch on her. She’s back at the tower, probably making you a million sandwiches right now.” Steve ran a hand through his unkempt hair, any injuries he’d sustained had long since healed. “She got you with that taser, you know.”

That did little to reassure him. He sighed and got out of the bed to use the small head attached to the room while Steve went to let the nurses know he was awake. It wasn’t long before the doctors were satisfied that he was as well as he could be at present and gave him permission to leave. They were soon in a quinjet back to what he was just now beginning to think of as home.

During the ride, he didn’t feel much like talking. But Steve either didn’t recognize this or decided to ignore it.

“You should really talk to Darcy.” He said, in a low voice from the other side of the aircraft. “She doesn’t blame you for anything.”

“Well, she should.” he said, curtly. He tried to ignore the look Steve turned on him then, the one that ate at his insides in a way he refused to acknowledge, probably because he knew the grinding loneliness of it was also shaded on his own face. 

“She trusts you, Buck. Do you have any idea how precious that is? She knows about everything you went through, everything you can do and she still stands by you.”

“She shouldn’t!” he snarled and jolted forward against the seat harness. Judging by Steve’s expression, he looked particularly manic. “She should run, as fast and as far away as she can. But she doesn’t! And I. DON’T. KNOW. WHY!”

He buried his face in his hands, suddenly exhausted. The truth of his discomfort had been wrung from his lips and hung heavy in the air. “She’s too good for me.”

Steve dropped his head back against the wall of the aircraft, watching him with half lidded eyes. The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Aren’t they all?”

“Punk.”

~*~

When he entered Darcy’s apartment, the first thing he heard was a great deal of cursing and banging around coming from the kitchen. Cautiously, he poked his head around the corner and saw what looked to be the result of a natural disaster. Pots, pans and all manner of cookware and kitchen utensils were piled haphazardly on the counters and center island. Though, one side seemed dedicated to finished products, he saw it piled high with baked goods.

“Where are the oven mitts?!” Darcy wailed, her head in the cupboard under the sink, ass in the air. She rose and whirled around to pin him with a desperate look. She gestured emphatically at the timer that was rapidly counting down to zero. “It has to come out at exactly forty minutes. Not thirty nine. Not forty one! Forty!”

He scanned the counters quickly and saw no sign of the culinary protective gear. Darcy was now digging through a drawer muttering to herself about all the tea towels being in the washing machine. Suddenly, the oven timer went off with a horrible buzzing noise. Darcy darted over to the oven and flung the door open. He saw her reach for the metal tray with her bare hands and reacted without thinking. He batted her away and snatched the tray up with his left hand.

“Where?” he demanded. She gestured to the table and scrambled over to clear a space.

“Move the oven mitts!” he ordered before realizing what he had just said. He dropped the tray into the now empty space and looked over at Darcy. She waved the oven mitts and began to laugh hysterically.

He couldn’t help himself, her laughter was too contagious, he felt his face split into the first real grin that he could remember. The tension in his shoulders easing just for a moment. Dropping the oven mitts, she stumbled over and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, still laughing. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her warm body to his chest. Eventually, her giggles subsided and she leaned back to look up at him.

“You are gorgeous when you smile.” Darcy said, her face glowing with happiness.

He looked down, letting himself fall into the warm depths of her sapphire eyes. Distantly, he heard a dull pounding in his ears as he leaned down and kissed her, the first he had initiated since the carnival months ago. But it was just his heart, his cold, frozen heart learning to beat again. For a moment, he thought she might pull away but then, wonder of wonders, she kissed him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you are all happy with this because, this? It's probably the most difficult thing I've written in a long time. Not because of what's actually in it but because it just wanted to keep going. And going. And going. I finally had to put my foot down and be done with it.
> 
> Anyway, the end was inspired by [this scene](http://imgur.com/TA4N3sQ) from Malcom in the Middle. 
> 
> And because it's apparently a thing now, here's Darcy's [Niagara Falls road trip outfit](http://www.polyvore.com/niagra_falls/set?id=119195970).


	5. Spread Its Fire Across the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps there was a metaphor there but his mind skittered away from examining it too closely.

The Land of Enchantment was decidedly unenchanting, he thought. He pulled the seven ton truck full of Jane’s science equipment to a stop in the shadow of a large rock formation. There were more scattered across the wide valley like ships in the sea that was the New Mexican desert but this one was the tallest and some kind of significance that he didn't completely understand. Everything was covered with a layer of snow that turned the ground to mud as they passed over it. Thankfully, they hadn’t had any problems with the vehicles in their little caravan getting stuck. The RV carrying the science team rolled up next to the truck and lurched to a halt. In the passenger seat next to him, Darcy sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“We here?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” She flung herself out of the truck, still half asleep, catching herself on the door before she could face plant on the ground.

He got out and went around to the back of the big vehicle where a lift gate had been installed. By the time he had it unfolded and ready to use, Darcy appeared with Dr. Selvig’s new intern to help him with the unloading. She looked back and forth between the two of them a few times before deciding that the lanky intern would probably do better in the truck. 

“Don’t touch my gear.” He said harshly as the younger man climbed up. The man looked back at him with thinly concealed fear and nodded. 

“I know you don’t do it on purpose but can you try not to petrify this one? We do need him to be able to do work tonight.” Darcy groused as they began unloading the crates. They weren’t especially heavy but they were unwieldy and awkward for her to carry. Fortunately, they weren’t going far so he simply stacked several of them up and carried them over his shoulder.

It wasn’t long before all of the crates were clustered around the RV and he left the science team to do the actual setup while he scouted the area. Jane had received special permission from the local government to conduct her experiments here. The mission brief hadn’t listed any credible threats being made against the scientist and her team recently, the protection of Thor was probably a major factor. But Jane had asked and Steve had agreed, so here he was, trudging through a desert in winter. It didn’t even have the decency to be warm.

Later that night as the sun was setting, Darcy grabbed his metal hand, not that she ever seemed to notice which hand she was holding, and pulled him after her. She lead him up into the rocks, away from the others clustered around the dying campfire. He had found the little ledge earlier during his walkabout. It was an ideal location for over-watch and he had planned to spend the night up here while the science team conducted their tests.

But it seemed that Darcy had other ideas. When they reached the spot he had picked out earlier, he found that she had at some point brought up a sleeping bag and hidden it with his weapons cases.

“No offense, Buckster but I think having you here is total overkill.” she said, unrolling the sleeping bag. She tossed him a cheeky grin over her shoulder. “Not that we don’t like having you around. Nerds and interns aren’t all that big in the upper body strength area.”

He raised his eyebrow but otherwise remained silent. He pulled his rifle case out from under the camouflage netting and began setting up his weapon while Darcy got settled. When he was finished, he sat down on the rocky ground next to Darcy, avoiding the sleeping bag even though she patted the extra material next to her. She gave him a strange look that he couldn’t quite interpret in the falling darkness.

“Comfort is a distraction from the mission.” he said, the words coming almost without thought. The look on Darcy’s face melted into something softer and she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

“Is everything a mission for you?” she asked quietly.

“I haven’t known any other way for a long time.” he said, truthfully. “I don’t know if I could.”

“Do you want to try?” she asked. The last of the sun’s rays slipped below the horizon, casting Darcy’s face in shadow.

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“I have some time. It’s not dark enough for Jane to start yet.” She shot him a glare. “I was hoping for a cuddle.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that so he turned away and looked out over the open expanse of desert before him. It wasn’t that he did not want the physical intimacy with Darcy. She certainly found nothing wrong with holding his hand, either hand, or hugging him or any other of the million ways she was constantly touching him. But he sometimes found himself wanting it too much and that, more than anything, bothered him in a way he couldn’t quite articulate.

“I’m sorry.” he said, quietly.

“It’s alright.” she said, too quickly for him to believe that he hadn’t somehow hurt her with his words. “I get it. Some people have a hard time multitasking.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He shifted to sit closer to her, though still not on the sleeping bag. She leaned her head against his shoulder. Her hair cascaded down the back of his arm in warm silky waterfall, the scent of her shampoo filling his nose.

He looked down at the rifle in his lap, so different from the one he had carried in the forests of Europe. The one he had named Betsy, whose barrel was cradled by a stock carved out of warm, solid wood and was never far from his reach. This new rifle had no such warmth, having been manufactured out of hard plastic and cold steel. He had no name for it and it stayed locked up in its box when he wasn’t using it.

Perhaps there was a metaphor there but his mind skittered away from examining it too closely.

"What is it you want from me?" he asked, finally.

She squinted up at him the falling darkness. "What makes you think I want anything?”

"Because everyone does."

She sighed and put her hand over his where he gripped the rifle's stock, rubbing her thumb over his leather covered knuckles. "I just want you to be happy."

And that was the problem, wasn't it? It had been so long since anyone cared about his emotional well being and he had been wiped so many times that he wasn't sure he could still feel happiness. He said as much to Darcy.

"That is so much crap!" she said hotly. "Of course you can still feel happiness. What do you think it is you feel when you smile? Like, really smile? And don't lie, I know you can smile. I've seen it. That's happiness, dork! Next you're going to tell me you don't deserve to be happy, am I right?"

His silence confirmed her assumption. She opened her mouth to continue but some smooth side of him made him lean over and kiss her, cutting her off. She melted against him almost immediately, hands coming up to cradle the back of his head. Eventually, they broke apart and he wrapped his free hand around her waist, pulling her tight against his side.

"You deserve to be happy." She whispered fiercely into the high neck of his jacket, her voice filled with the kind of steel he normally heard coming from Steve. "Stop thinking about it so hard."

~*~

Eventually, the stars came out and Darcy had to return to help Jane with her work. He was left on the rocky ledge staring out into the desert expanse that surrounded them. A sweep with the infrared binoculars showed nothing, just empty desert as far as he could see. 

The night passed uneventfully. He conducted a few security sweeps but had otherwise stayed up on the ledge, out of the way of the experiments being conducted in and around the vehicles the camp was centered around. This unfortunately left him plenty of time alone with his thoughts. It was a new feeling for him. Before, they would never have sent him on a job as simple as this and he would never have had, no that wasn’t right, would never have been _allowed_ , any thoughts other than those directly related to the mission. 

It had certainly made him more effective but did he prefer that? Did it make him… happy? 

The sky was beginning to lighten in the east when he heard Darcy making her way up through the rocks. He sat down on the folded up sleeping bag, feet hanging over the ledge, rifle across his knees and waited.

“Hey.” she said softly, weariness apparent in the slump of her shoulders and the scuff of her boots. She dropped down to sit next to him, filling in more than just the space he had left her. “Anything happen?”

“Two coyotes had a fight.”

“That’s exciting.” she yawned. “Jane’s finishing up. It’s probably going to be a little while before we start packing. You need any help with your stuff?”

“No.”

She hummed and leaned against his shoulder again. Once more, he pulled her close, cradling her small frame against his side. He noticed for the first time that she was dressed like a flame, all layers of reds and oranges and yellows. Appropriate, he thought, for the woman who brought so much warmth to his life.

“I can’t make any promises.” he whispered against the top of her head. She pulled back a little to look at him in the gathering light.

“Can you promise to try?” she asked, eyes bright.

He melted despite the lack of desert heat and nodded. 

“Then that’s all I need.” 

She tucked her head under his chin and they both sat and watched as the sun spread its fire across the sky to rise over a new day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End... or is it?
> 
> For those of you interested in these things, the rifle Bucky uses as a sniper in the first movie was a M1941 Johnson rifle. Incidentally, Betsy was the inventor's nickname for the prototype. Great minds and all that!
> 
> Also, [Darcy's outfit](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=119797716).
> 
> PS: I'm on tumblr now. You can find me at whitesilenceinthesnow


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